Sala delle Prospettive (trompe-l'oeil panorama)

The most astonishing trompe-l'oeil room in Renaissance Rome — walls painted as an open colonnade dissolving into a panoramic view of 16th-century Rome. Visitors reach out to touch the painted columns believing them real. Through the painted windows: the old St Peter's still standing, the Palatine Hill, the Theatre of Marcellus. An irreplaceable visual document of Renaissance Rome. Almost always empty — go upstairs at the Farnesina.